Wildlife Promise » Exxon Mobilhttp://blog.nwf.org
The National Wildlife Federation's blogTue, 03 Mar 2015 21:35:34 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.2A Year After Mayflower Disaster, an Oil Spill at Every Turnhttp://blog.nwf.org/2014/04/a-year-after-mayflower-disaster-an-oil-spill-at-every-turn/
http://blog.nwf.org/2014/04/a-year-after-mayflower-disaster-an-oil-spill-at-every-turn/#commentsTue, 01 Apr 2014 19:40:38 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=93681Read more >]]>A year ago, residents of a quiet suburban neighborhood in Mayflower, Arkansas, watched in horror as heavy, toxic tar sands oil poured out of a burst pipeline, across their yards and into their street, covering everything in black muck and releasing noxious gases.

Mallard duck coated in oil, March 2013 (via Arkansas HAWK Center)

The spill made national news, and people around the country saw residents being escorted out of their homes with just a few belongings, and in many cases moving away. It would be appropriate to take a moment and commemorate the one-year anniversary of this devastating spill, and consider ways to move beyond a source of energy that causes such destruction.

Too bad we don’t have time for that. As a nation, we have been busy dealing with four oil spills in different states in just the past two weeks.

No matter the location of an oil spill, wildlife are killed or injured, people are exposed to chemicals and pushed from their homes, and water becomes too polluted for drinking or recreation. It takes months and years, even decades, to clean up.

And there is no time to dwell on the implications afterward – because by the time the birds are cleaned up, the cameras turned off, and people returned to their homes, it has happened again elsewhere. And the rest of us? Between news of the latest spill in one river or another, anniversaries of huge disasters like Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon, there are so many that we can’t even keep them straight.

It Could Happen in Vermont

One year after the Mayflower disaster, 25 years after Exxon Valdez, we still face another oil spill at every turn. That fact should prompt us to consider the aging pipeline that runs right through our backyard, cutting through the Northeast Kingdom between New Hampshire and Maine. The Exxon-owned company that operates the pipeline is clinging to the possibility of using it to transport toxic tar sands oil from Montreal to Portland. As the company releases carefully worded statements about safety in hopes of allaying any concerns over a project involving its half-century-old equipment, they beg us to ignore the most important and indisputable fact of all: Pipelines spill.

Pipelines spill in Texas. Pipelines spill in Michigan. Pipelines spill in Arkansas, they spill in Ohio. And, yes, they spill in Vermont. The biggest recorded spill from the Portland-Montreal pipeline in Vermont was years ago. Many have forgotten the day that people stood on the bridge in Coventry and peered down at oil coating the icy Black River, and watched as cleanup crews threw flaming kerosene-soaked hay bales in to try to burn off the oil. But it did happen. A spill today of the conventional crude currently being transported through the pipeline would be bad for communities from Jay to Sutton to Victory; if the pipeline carried tar sands crude instead, an incident could be devastating.

Looking down at the icy Black River in Coventry, Vt., January 2014 – in the spot where residents noticed oil slicks under the bridge after a 1952 spill. Photo: Annie Mackin

Vermonters understand the threat. The pipeline in Mayflower, Arkansas, was similar in age and size to the pipeline that runs through Vermont. 42 towns have already voted to show their opposition to the transport of tar sands crude through our state. Even without the similarities, the fact of pipelines remains the same: They spill, no matter where they are, and that’s the last thing Vermonters need to spend their time worrying about. We should be spending our time finding ways to move to cleaner sources of energy, instead of enabling further expansion of extreme fuels that pollute our nation’s waterways and wreck our climate.

Photo of the Exxon Oil Spill on the Yellowstone River. Photo by Alexis Bonogofsky

Citizens from Yellowstone County are asking Exxon to pay the full $1.7 million dollar fine amount levied by the US Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) for the 63,000-gallon crude oil spill into the Yellowstone River on July 2, 2011. They are also asking Montana’s Congressional Delegation to support PHMSA’s fine amount.

A Facebook page dedicated to asking Exxon to pay its fine was started gathering over 340 likes in just a few days of existence. “Exxon, Pay Your Yellowstone Oil Spill Fine” can be found at www.facebook.com/PayYourFineExxon.

“I believe that PHMSA’s proposed fine in the case of the Yellowstone River spill is fair,” said Eileen Morris of the Yellowstone Valley Citizens Council. “Exxon should be held accountable and fulfill their obligations.”

In a letter sent today, citizens are asking Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester and Representative Daines to support PHMSA’s fine against Exxon Mobil Corporation. PHMSA found that Exxon failed to address known seasonal flooding risks to the safety of its pipeline system, including excessive river scour and erosion, and to implement measures that would have mitigated the spill into the Yellowstone River putting thousands of people in danger and damaging the ecosystem. In addition, Exxon failed to establish written procedures for its staff to take prompt and effective action to protect the Silvertip pipeline from floods and other natural disasters, and to minimize the volume of oil released from any section along the pipeline’s system.

“Exxon failed to address known safety problems with the Silvertip Pipeline putting thousands of people at risk, damaging private property and killing fish and wildlife in the Yellowstone. PHMSA’s investigation into these issues was thorough and comprehensive. Exxon needs to take responsibility and pay their fine,” said Debra Bonogofsky, local landowner impacted by the spill.

It is in the best interest of all Montanans and the American public to ensure that our pipeline systems are as safe as possible. Operators, in this case Exxon, must be held accountable if they do not adhere to federal safety standards. The group of Montanans believe that PHMSA’s proposed fine in the case of the Yellowstone River spill is appropriate, defensible and necessary.

The Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011, signed into law last year by President Obama, doubled the maximum civil penalty amount PHMSA can issue to pipeline operators for violating pipeline safety regulations from $100,000 to $200,000 for each violation, and from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 for a related series of violations. The fine imposed by PHMSA easily falls within these regulations and justifications for the fines are comprehensive.

On July 17, a hearing will be held in Washington D.C. with PHMSA to address Exxon’s protests of the fine.

More than two months after an aging pipeline cracked open, spilling more than 100,000 gallons of heavy crude oil into a Mayflower neighborhood and a cove of Lake Conway, Exxon Mobil still has not provided federal regulators with even a preliminary cause for the break and has not requested approval to resume transporting oil through that pipeline.

Before Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co. can reopen the 850-mile-long Pegasus pipeline, which was built starting in 1947, it must comply with several corrective measures ordered April 2 by the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

Exxon Mobil has neither updated its April 26 accident report filed with the federal agency nor asked to reopen the pipeline, which spilled an estimated 147,000 gallons of oil March 29, leading to the evacuations of 22 homes, dead and injured wildlife, several lawsuits, and federal and state investigations.

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil has released this set of photos of the cleanup of a Lake Conway cove that was devastated by the Pegasus tar sands spill, calling them “before” and “after” photos. But the photos don’t actually show “before” when the area was an oil-free wetland wildlife habitat, and the “after” doesn’t show a restored wetland.

“These photos aren’t before and after – they’re mid-disaster and mid-cleanup,” says National Wildlife Federation South Central Representative Geralyn Hoey. “What does Exxon plan to do for wetland restoration? Are they going to try to recreate what was a thriving habitat for waterfowl, beavers, and other wildlife?”

Exxon’s celebratory news release doesn’t say. Exxon has released few details about exactly how it conducted the cleanup. When Geralyn and I visited the Exxon command center and offered the National Wildlife Federation’s assistance, we were told we would not be allowed anywhere near the spill site and were told to stop taking photos of the spill by an Exxon contractor (we moved to another location and kept taking photos). Especially since this was heavy, toxic tar sands oil, it’s impossible to say for sure if the oil is gone without taking samples several feet below the surface.

“These photos are a horrible reminder of what the people and wildlife in Mayflower have gone through and the high price to America of serving as the middleman as oil companies pipe Canadian tar sands to the international market,” says Geralyn. It’s not just Arkansas – spills of toxic tar sands have fouled communities, waterways and wildlife habitat from Michigan to Missouri. A National Wildlife Federation-led coalition has asked two federal agencies to set stronger safety standards for tar sands pipelines.

But just last week, officials with British Columbia’s government told national authorities that the province wants nothing to do with the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline that would bring tar sands west for export. Officials said the tar sands industry has failed to answer questions about the impact of spills on clean water and the communities and wildlife that depend on them.

“If Canada doesn’t want to accept the risk of transporting Canadian tar sands, why in the world is Arkansas suffering for it?” asks Geralyn.

On Monday, I spoke again with Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) for an update and they shared the following information with me. The main body of Lake Conway has NOT been impacted, only the adjacent cove/wetland. AGFC estimates approximately 15 acres has been impacted.

AGFC stated that Exxon acknowledged that they didn’t think there would be as much impact on wildlife and were thus not prepared to deal with the wildlife recovery until Tuesday April 2nd. A wildlife recovery center has been set up and the wildlife impact numbers are below (these are of course only the numbers of wildlife actually recovered – as we know from previous spills, most wildlife victims may never be found). The public recovered numerous ducks the first few days and the HAWK Center took the majority of those. Tuesday (2nd) they were all transported to the official recovery center to be treated.

Here’s a list of (this is not a comprehensive list but the total of 139 is current as of April 8th). 139 Total individual wildlife recovered

Speak Up to Protect Wildlife from Tar Sands

It’s time for America to take a stand against tar sands oil – the risks to our wildlife, communities and clean water are just too great. Please take a moment now to ask President Obama to say no to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

Four days after Exxon Mobil’s Pegasus pipeline sent tar sands oil flooding through a neighborhood in the small Arkansas town of Mayflower, the fumes still burned my nostrils — like fresh asphalt with a bite. As Geralyn Hoey, the National Wildlife Federation’s South Central regional representative, pulled our car up to the police checkpoint, the officer guarding the entrance to the subdivision told us we weren’t allowed in without Exxon Mobil’s permission. Over at the “Unified Command Center” set up in a nearby warehouse, Exxon Mobil representatives told us they wouldn’t allow us in “for your own safety.”

From that subdivision last Friday, the tar sands oil flowed down a storm drain, through a creek, and into a cove just before Lake Conway, a major sportfishing haven. Exxon Mobil crews are making a stand in that cove, hoping to keep the oil from flowing through a culvert under AR-89 and into Lake Conway. But that cove is also where tar sands oil-covered wildlife keep turning up — a fact Exxon Mobil can’t hide.

Community Hit Hard

Here in Mayflower, everyone’s happy to talk about how the spill has impacted them personally — but ask them to go on camera and they clam up. They know Exxon Mobil now has them over a barrel: the tar sands spill has left their homes somewhere on a scale between devalued and worthless, and an Exxon Mobil settlement is their best hope of getting that money back.

Joined by David Carruth, an Arkansas resident and member of the National Wildlife Federation’s board of directors, we walked into the local Hess gas station/bait shop to see if local sport fishermen had any insight into how local wildlife was faring. The man at the counter told us he lives on Starlite Drive, ground zero of the tar sands spill. He’s staying in a Holiday Inn Express in the next town over on Exxon Mobil’s tab while the cleanup continues.

“We just bought our home and the place next door for my wife’s mother. I thought sure we’d be there forever,” he said while showing us photos on his iPhone of tar sands oil flowing through his front yard, Easter decorations still visible on the home next door. “Now we don’t know when we’ll be allowed back home. And if we decide to sell, who’s ever going to want to buy it?” He said the subdivision’s developer told them about the water and natural gas lines running under the area, but he says he doesn’t remember any mention of an oil pipeline.

I mentioned that Exxon Mobil and other tar sands transporters haven’t been paying into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, claiming the provisions only cover conventional oil, not tar sands oil. He shook his head sadly. “My father landed on Omaha Beach. Back then, folks had a sense of civic duty.”

Wetlands Coated in Tar Sands Oil

From there, we headed to the cove to get a closer look. A homeowner pulled out her phone and showed us photos she’s taken of oiled birds and a muskrat in her backyard. She said she called state officials to report the oiled wildlife but was told they didn’t have the resources to respond. She then called the HAWK Center, which rescued several ducks. Yesterday — four days after the spill — Exxon Mobil finally set up its own wildlife rehabilitation center with an oiled wildlife hotline (1-800-876-9291) and took over cleaning wildlife from HAWK.

The homeowner led us to the spot on the waterline where she found the oiled wildlife. Sure enough, David spotted an oiled duck that scurried into the thick brush. We alerted rescue crews, but a duck in marshy underbrush is a needle in a haystack.

We pushed through the marsh around the edge of the cove, seeing a steady stream of oily spots and finding some tar balls. We then came upon a huge area of oiled marsh with cleanup crews working to remove as much tar sands oil as possible.

Two workers approached David and I thought for sure they’d tell us to scram. But it turned out they were wildlife rescuers asking if we’d seen any oiled wildlife. “I can’t believe how thick this stuff is,” one told David. “It’s like road tar — it’s nothing like motor oil.”

They estimated wildlife rescuers had found about 30 oiled ducks and other birds, a half-dozen oiled venomous snakes, and an oiled muskrat. They’d also spotted an oiled beaver out in the marsh, but said it was impossible to catch.

The sight of the heavily oiled marsh was a tragic reminder that cleaning 100% of this thick, sticky tar sands oil will likely be impossible; the impacts will be felt for months and possibly years to come.

The National Wildlife Federation will continue to monitor the impacts of the Arkansas tar sands oil spill. See more photos on Flickr and keep checking back to Wildlife Promise for updates.

Take Action

It’s time for America to take a stand against tar sands oil – the risks to our wildlife, communities and clean water are just too great. Please take a moment now to ask President Obama to say no to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

]]>http://blog.nwf.org/2013/04/as-arkansas-community-reels-from-tar-sands-oil-spill-wildlife-remain-in-peril/feed/16The Lies of a Tar Sands Spill — Take Twohttp://blog.nwf.org/2013/04/the-lies-of-a-tar-sands-spill-take-two/
http://blog.nwf.org/2013/04/the-lies-of-a-tar-sands-spill-take-two/#commentsWed, 03 Apr 2013 14:32:28 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=77866Read more >]]>Oil from an Exxon tar sands pipeline rupture continues to spread — coating a creek, wetland, homes and making its way toward a nearby lake. Making matters worse, the rainy weather forecasted for coming days will continue to hinder the containment effort. You might recognize the Exxon name, as they were the oil company behind the Yellowstone River pipeline spill a couple years ago, and of course nobody can forget the Exxon Valdez tanker spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska 24 years ago.

Exxon had to be told that their tar sands pipeline broke as a river of tar sands oil flowed in and around homes and wetlands. Exxon is still working to stop the flow of oil from reaching nearby Lake Conway, which also happens to be the water resources for the nearby communities. Similarly, Enbridge had to be told about their million gallon spill – that tar sands spill went unreported for almost 17 hours and impacted nearly 40 miles of the Kalamazoo River! A State of Emergency was issued by the governor of Michigan to bring in resources to prevent the oil from hitting Lake Michigan.

Exxon seems to be grossly underestimating the amount of tar sands spilled: they originally reported only 80,000 gallons spilled, but now that figure is closer to 400,000 gallons. Judging by the photos and videos, I would guess the figure will continue to rise. Enbridge also underestimated the original spill amounts, which is still under debate to this day. Enbridge also estimated the clean-up would take weeks, which has now turning into years. This is the same story Exxon is selling to the media and their failure to face the facts continues to cause major delays in the cleanup, which will only continue to impact the communities and wildlife negatively.

Because of these low spill figures, Exxon has been allowed to get away with a pathetic response and responders are not showing signs of using spill equipment that accounts for the fact that this oil will sink in the wetlands and water impacted. It took Enbridge months to admit that the tar sands heavy crude sank in the river and wetlands, and by that time all the damage had been done. Because response to tar sands spills is much harder and much more expansive, I am guessing that Exxon will continue to try and hide the facts. Enbridge and the EPA are still trying to figure out how to clean-up tar sands oil submerged in the Kalamazoo River.

Wildlife response is incredibly lacking and continues to be limited by Exxon — due to their potential liability. One group that has stood up in the face of this disaster is Helping Arkansas Wildlife Kritters. We want to thank them for their leadership in response. However, it appears that an Exxon contractor will soon take over all wildlife response efforts. We hope that federal agencies will also step in to ensure that response is being handled properly. It took Enbridge nearly two weeks to have their wildlife center in full gear. In those two weeks, local rescues along the Kalamazoo River tried to take matters into their own hands, but were quickly shut down because Enbridge considered their wildlife response a liability. My heart breaks for the wildlife and people that continue to be impacted.

Transparency is nowhere to be found – leaving impacted residents confused and angry. Exxon has evacuated between 20-40 families and I have a feeling the evacuation zone could increase. It is critical to get people and wildlife out of the impacted area as quickly as possible because the benzene (part of the diluents used to transport tar sands through pipelines) is at unsafe concentrations in the days immediately following a release. Benzene is considered a carcinogen. Enbridge had major delays, but ended up evacuating homes within a few hundred feet of the Kalamazoo River because exposure to the chemicals was a major concern. Because of confusion and delays in those evacuations, over 300 people reported having health issues related to exposure to the tar sands crude. Ultimately, Enbridge ended up buying around 150 homes from families living along the Kalamazoo River because contamination was so widespread.

For almost 3 years now, many people (including myself) have been fighting to try and get the oil industry, our regulators and lawmakers to pay attention to the lessons learned from the Enbridge Kalamazoo River disaster – so it never happens again. The Exxon spill proves (again) that the focus for oil companies and pipeline operators is only on profits and not on the safety of our communities, wildlife and resources. Enbridge has also argued that the Kalamazoo River disaster was a rare situation. With not even three years between this spill and the Enbridge spill, I think we can safely say this is a precursor for what’s to come if we continue to allow the tar sands industry to expand.

What will it take for us to change? Last week, the National Wildlife Federation, through the filing of a rulemaking petition, lead a coalition of concerned citizens and organizations by called for a moratorium on tar sands pipelines projects and expansions until the EPA and PHMSA create tar sands pipeline regulations that account for these issues – and many more. Please help support this effort by contacting those agencies and speaking up for wildlife and those impacted by this latest disaster.

It’s unclear exactly how much oil spilled, but as we saw in the early days of BP’s Gulf oil disaster, the number is growing exponentially each day. “Exxon Mobil officials said the total amount of water and oil pumped out of a Mayflower subdivision nearly tripled Sunday, reaching 12,000 barrels, or 504,000 gallons, compared with estimates on Saturday that crews had pumped 4,500 barrels,” reports the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette this morning.

The spill comes just days after a National Wildlife Federation-led coalition called on federal agencies to develop stronger safety standards for pipelines carrying heavy, corrosive tar sands oil. “It’s clear we need tough new standards to protect wildlife, our natural resources and public health,” said Jim Murphy, NWF’s senior counsel. “Until the right standards are put into place, we shouldn’t be exposing more communities and resources to tar sands risks.”

Watch this clip taken by a man who lives in the Mayflower, Ark. neighborhood where the pipeline ruptured:

Those storm drains head towards Lake Conway, a huge manmade reservoir stocked with bass, catfish, bream and crappie. Local authorities built several earthen dams to try to keep the tar sands oil out of Lake Conway, but if the water is fouled, it won’t just threaten the fish, it will threaten the area’s recreation economy.

The 848-mile pipeline used to transport crude oil from Texas to Illinois. In 2006 Exxon reversed it to move crude from Illinois to Texas in response to growing Canadian oil production and the ability of U.S. Gulf Coast refineries to process heavy crude.

The Arkansas spill drew fast reaction from opponents of the 800,000 [barrel per day] Keystone XL pipeline, which also would carry heavy crude from Canada’s tar sands to the Gulf Coast refining hub.

Environmentalists have expressed concerns about the impact of developing the oil sands and say the crude is more corrosive to pipelines than conventional oil. On Wednesday, a train carrying Canadian crude derailed in Minnesota, spilling 15,000 gallons of oil.

“Whether it’s the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, or … (the) mess in Arkansas, Americans are realizing that transporting large amounts of this corrosive and polluting fuel is a bad deal for American taxpayers and for our environment,” said Representative Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat.

The National Wildlife Federation is working with staff, partners and our state affiliate, the Arkansas Wildlife Federation to monitor the impacts of the Arkansas oil spill. Keep checking back to this post and to Wildlife Promise for updates.

Lauren Ray, a University of the Ozarks student, sent NWF this photo of one of the ducks that was treated at the HAWK Center. According to Lauren, “This duck had already been washed multiple times, yet the oil was still very apparent.”

Oiled duck from Mayflower Ark. oil spill. Photo by Lauren Ray.

]]>http://blog.nwf.org/2013/04/breaking-exxon-tar-sands-pipeline-ruptures-in-arkansas-forcing-evacuations-and-threatening-wildlife/feed/10Fighting Money with Money: Campuses Divest from Fossil Fuelshttp://blog.nwf.org/2012/10/campus-divestment/
http://blog.nwf.org/2012/10/campus-divestment/#commentsWed, 10 Oct 2012 14:48:44 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=67398Read more >]]>Hey, did you know? There’s an election coming up! Right, right, you knew. Kind of hard to miss that one. But here are a few more things you maybe didn’t know, that haven’t necessarily been advertised every 30 seconds in print, on television and online: this election season, there is a whole bunch of dirty energy money in politics.

Did you know, for example, that since 1998, Exxon Mobil has spent $176,362,742 lobbying Congress, spending almost $7 million in 2012 alone? And did you know that for every dollar the fossil fuel industry invests in Congress, they get at least $320 back in subsidies? Did you know that Exxon Mobil has spent over $22,000,000 since 1998 to fund corporations and think tanks that work to deny global warming?

Live map of campuses working on divestment projects. Click the map to visit the Responsible Endowments Coalition website.

And, did you know that college campuses control more than 400 billion dollars in investments nationwide, oftentimes in corporations at the top of the Fortune 500 list? #1: Exxon Mobil, #3: Chevron, #4: ConocoPhillips. So, it might be safe to draw the conclusion that yes, colleges and universities are, in one way or another, through the investment of their endowments, funding dirty energy exploration, carbon pollution and even the very denial of climate change.

Institutions of higher education often have mission statements, generally encompassing themes like offering a high-quality education, ensuring a safe learning environment, advancing society and improving the human condition. More recent additions to many university mission statements are mentions of sustainability–a broad term that, for most, brings to mind resource conservation, clean energy projects and a green and sparkling future.

Well that sounds nice. It also sounds like there’s a disconnect between the way things are today and the socially and environmentally just world that universities are striving to create. Colleges and universities aren’t quite putting their money where their mouths are. But that is about to change.

There is a strong and growing collection of students issuing a challenge to institutions nationwide to stop investing in corporations that aren’t looking out for our health, or the health of our planet.

Divestment is a complicated issue, and there is no one-size-fits-all method to magically end campus funding of corporate polluters. Luckily, there are plenty of resources out there to help you and your team choose the most effective strategy for your campus.

The Responsible Endowments Coalition has tons of great resources for students who want to get involved with influencing their campuses’ endowment policies, including a Student Handbook, a collection of articles and blogs about divestment, and several firsthand accounts for best practices. They also offer educational and networking opportunities, like the upcoming conference on responsible investing and sustainability and other ways for students and administrators to connect and build the movement. The Energy Action Coalition has a coal divestment campaign to work with students who want to get their campuses to divest from the biggest and worst coal companies. The Sustainable Endowments Institute just launched the Billion Dollar Challenge to encourage campuses to use their endowments to invest in energy efficiency and clean energy projects for their campus.

So gather some friends and some faculty and see what kind of change you can make!

And now a word from Bill McKibben:

Image Credit reinvestearlham.wordpress.com

Is your campus working on a divestment campaign? What other ways are you encouraging your community to support clean energy over fossil fuels? Leave a comment, tell us on Facebook, or send us a tweet. We want to hear from you!

]]>http://blog.nwf.org/2012/10/campus-divestment/feed/4Exxon’s Stealth Moves to Run Tar Sands into New Englandhttp://blog.nwf.org/2012/10/breaking-through-the-corporate-cover-of-the-trailbreaker/
http://blog.nwf.org/2012/10/breaking-through-the-corporate-cover-of-the-trailbreaker/#commentsTue, 09 Oct 2012 17:39:43 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=67880Read more >]]>We’ve written before about Big Oil’s new playbook on tar sands: using stealth tactics to make it harder for the public to figure out what dangerous projects they have in mind and trying to pull one over on the public. Bearing locally-based labels like “Portland Pipe Line Corporation” and “Montreal Pipe Line Limited,” the proposed Trailbreaker tar sands pipeline is actually owned by ExxonMobil, via its Canadian Subsidiary Imperial Oil, with tar sands giant Suncor Energy having a minority stake in the company.

Imperial and Suncor are among the largest developers of Canadian tar sands oil. This convoluted corporate maze of oil behemoths is in bed with Enbridge, the company behind the Kalamazoo River oil spill, the most costly onshore spill in U.S. history. Now, it apparently wants to pump tar sands oil from Alberta through Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine to the port of Portland for overseas markets. Tar sands oil is a heavy, corrosive, diluted bitumen and is known as one of the dirtiest, most-polluting, hardest-to-clean-up fuels on the planet. The tar sands business is booming in Canada and the corporate hawks are positioning to pounce on the profits they see in this dirty product by using New England communities as conduits to export markets.

It’s no wonder ExxonMobil doesn’t want to come clean. The company’s not clean. It was ExxonMobil that caused the infamous 1989 Valdez spill, a disaster that spewed 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s pristine waters. In July 2011, the company’s Silvertip Pipeline dumped 42,000 gallons of oil into Montana’s Yellowstone River.

840,000 of tar sands crude spilled into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River last year

And the plot thickens. Exxon’s apparent partner in the Trailbreaker tar sands plot is Enbridge, the company that owns the line from Ontario to Montreal that could connect to the line to Portland. In 2010, an Enbridge pipeline rupture poured a million gallons of oil into Michigan’s Talmadge Creek and Kalamazoo River, an incident which an independent review found was due to extreme negligence.

The New England Trailbreaker project would reverse the flow of the current Portland-Montreal Pipe Line (PMPL) going from Portland, Maine, to Quebec. Under the Trailbreaker scheme, tar sands would flow across Canada and through Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine through this pipeline. And this oil flowing to Portland would not help the people of those states even if they wanted it because the most likely would be exported or sent to refineries by ship. The people of New England would be left with all the harm – ruptures and pumping station breakdowns that could threaten thousands of clear lakes and rivers and unspoiled forests.

The people of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine have a long history of valuing their forests, rivers and lakes. They deserve straight talk and full disclosure, not backroom deals shrouded in a complicated a corporate structure that hides the true identity and motives of the real players who see these states as just a “pass-through” to the coast and a pass-through to easy profits.

“This pipeline presents a double whammy. ExxonMobil’s apparent partner in this tar sands pipeline scheme is Enbridge, which has disastrous safety record and is responsible for the devastating Kalamazoo River tar sands spill in 2010,” said Jim Murphy, Vermont-based Senior Counsel with National Wildlife Federation. “Enbridge spilled a million gallons of tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River, the most expensive domestic pipeline spill in history that will mar the river for years, maybe decades. Independent review found that extreme negligence led to the spill. Vermont doesn’t need this type of disaster.”

These oil giants have a dirty track record. Let’s not let them add to that record.

]]>http://blog.nwf.org/2012/10/breaking-through-the-corporate-cover-of-the-trailbreaker/feed/1Why Big Oil is Declaring War on Polar Bears – And How You Can Help Fight Backhttp://blog.nwf.org/2011/08/why-big-oil-is-declaring-war-on-polar-bears-and-how-you-can-help-fight-back-2/
http://blog.nwf.org/2011/08/why-big-oil-is-declaring-war-on-polar-bears-and-how-you-can-help-fight-back-2/#commentsWed, 03 Aug 2011 14:21:14 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/wildlifepromise/?p=28804Read more >]]>

Photo by Mila Zinkova via Wikimedia Commons.

It’s happening again – Big Oil is using deceptive tactics to confuse the public about climate science. And this time, the attack threatens polar bears. We need your help to see through their smokescreen and to stand up for the truth.

Let’s go step by step to understand the attack, why it’s happening, and how we can fight back together.

The Strategy

A federal agency is looking into compliance with procurement process regulations, so global warming must not be happening and we can stop protecting polar bears. No, really – that’s what climate science-denying polluter front groups are claiming.

His research was apparently the first documentation of polar bears drowning at sea on long swims. The study is part of a mountain of evidence that led to polar bears being listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (though the National Wildlife Federation argues they should be considered endangered).

“When it comes to science demonstrating the threat to polar bears posed by global warming, this study is only the tip of the iceberg,” says Dr. Doug Inkley, senior scientist with the National Wildlife Federation. “The latest major study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey further documents that on long swims to receding Arctic sea ice, some bear cubs are disappearing, and their mothers burn much-needed calories. So far, 2011 is no exception – the Arctic’s summer sea ice is at record-low levels.”

Big Oil’s strategy reveals much more about its own shameful lack of integrity as it does about Dr. Monnett’s work. That’s because the federal agency itself says its probe has “nothing to do with scientific integrity,” instead focusing on contract questions:

Some new details have emerged in the mysterious case of Charles Monnett, the government wildlife biologist under investigation by the Department of Interior’s Inspector General. When Monnett, who works for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) in Alaska, was placed on adminstrative leave last month pending an investigation into unspecified “integrity issues,” there was speculation that the probe was linked to the biologist’s 2006 paper on polar bear deaths in the Arctic. But a spokeswoman for BOEMRE insisted last week that the investigation has “nothing to do with scientific integrity, his 2006 journal article, or issues related to permitting, as has been alleged.”

On Tuesday, Monnett’s legal representatives at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) released a memorandum that the IG’s office issued to the biologist last Friday indicating that its investigation centers on the procurement process for a research project on “Populations and Sources of Recruitment in Polar Bears.” The University of Alberta in Canada is the lead organization on the ongoing study, but BOEMRE provided a substantial portion of the funding. The agency ordered to the university to “cease and desist” all work on the study five days before Monnett was suspended in mid-July. [NWF Update: Suspension has since been lifted.]

The IG’s memo to Monnett requests an August 9 meeting to discuss “compliance with Federal Acquisition Regulations, disclosure of personal relationships, and preparation of the scope of work.”

Here’s just one example of how Big Oil’s allies have been executing their smokescreen strategy. The New York Post (owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation) ran an op-ed on Tuesday claiming BOEMRE’s probe–again, BOEMRE itself now says it has nothing to do with the polar bear study– saying that while “the specifics of the investigation are as yet unclear,” we can safely leap to the conclusion that climate science itself is in question. Sound familiar?

What, you expected Exxon Mobil to attack climate and polar bear science directly? That’s not how it works. Polluters pay front groups to do it for them, so instead of coming from a big, bad oil company, the attacks appear to be coming from a dispassionate third party.

The Motive

Why is attacking the science connecting polar bears and global warming so critical for these polluter front groups? Oil companies have been pushing relentlessly to drill in the Arctic, not only in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge but in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas – which the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has designated under the Endangered Species Act as critical polar bear habitat. Given the rock-solid scientific evidence, Big Oil knows it can’t win a fair debate, so it needs to resort to smokescreens and personal attacks to have any shot at drilling.

“The BP Gulf oil disaster reminds us that offshore drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, such as critical habitat for polar bears and other Arctic species, is simply not worth the risk,” says Dr. Doug Inkley.

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